Working with sketchbooks - Art in everyday life (LHI-BJB-03-EN)

Working with sketchbooks - Art in everyday life

group work, single work, discussion, excursion, coaching, warm-up exercises

A sketchbook, post-it notes, any material to write, draw, paint, glue, cut, staple etc.

Have available a sketchbook that you are comfortable with or make your own.

Can vary from one person to another, depending on how much time they need to prepare their sketchbook.

Facilitators should approach participants as individuals working on an equal level. When working in groups, it is important to arrange the classroom so that the participants and the facilitator sit in a circle (roundtable or tables arranged in a circle or U- form). The facilitator should take part in assignments as much as possible. It is important to emphasise that this is not the place for being perfect and that mistakes, stupidity and silliness are encouraged, that is how something new happens. The educator should be clear that the classroom is a safe space for people to express themselves. Leave space for participants to affect the workshop and implement their ideas.

Individuals that are trying this exercise should emphasise that this is not the place for being perfect and that mistakes, stupidity and silliness are encouraged.

For educators and participants the book Art as Therapy by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong would be perfect material to read. It proposes that art can be viewed as a tool for making sense of our emotions and the world around us. Books by Lynda Barry, especially Syllabus - notes from an accidental professor and Making Comics focus on the simple truth that everyone can create art. In these books you can find several useful exercises that you can adapt to your own interests.

References:

De Botton, A. og Armstrong, J. Art as Therapy. Phaidon.

Barry, L. (2014). Syllabus: notes from an accidental professor. Drawn and Quarterly.

Barry, L. (2019). Making Comics. Drawn and Quarterly.

Through this method/action, these benefits are achieved:

• knowledge of various ways to use a sketchbook
• using a sketchbook in effective way to investigate and develop individual’s personal creative voice
• participation in conversations and collaborative creative experiments

• step 1: Acquire a sketchbook. You can buy one or make it yourself. The important part is to use something that you are comfortable with. It can be lined, checked, or have empty pages.  It can be hardcover or more flexible. It can be big or small, messy, or neat, expensive, or cheap. It should have the right number of qualities for you to be able to care deeply for it and not be so precious that you are afraid to use it.
• step 2: Make it your own. It is important that the sketchbook reflects who you are. That you can relate to it aesthetically, that makes it more likely that you use it.
• step 3: Set a clock for example for 10 minutes. Use post-it notes to write down as much as you can, answering the question: what is a sketchbook? (a few words on each post-it-note). There is no right answer. Stick the post-it notes to a wall or on a board. As time passes you can add to more notes. You can use this as a base for what is to come and try out everything you have written.
• step 4: Examples of what a sketchbook can be are: to organize ideas, digest them, categorise or file them. Make lists, plan the future or be in the now and notice the world around you. It can help you relax or vent, find purpose or praise pointlessness. It can be private or used to explain something to others. It can aim for a goal or just be what it is. A place for experiments, secrets, feelings, pictures, or words. Make something beautiful, make something ugly. Make mistakes or something you are very proud of.
• step 5: Find inspiration everywhere, share ideas for example reading material, videos, art, excursions and exercises. Use your expertise; sketchbooks don't have to be used for art! If you are a doctor, a farmer, a mechanic, a teacher, a gardener, find ways to use it. Look at the world differently and share your findings with other people.
• step 6: Use the sketchbook every day. Sometimes you don't feel like it and then you can just draw a dot. Use the sketchbook to be human and find out more about who you are.

Halla Birgisdóttir

https://www.hallabirgisdottir.org

https://www.instagram.com/hallamyndskald/

Halla Birgisdóttir  is a visual poet and teacher. She has a BA in Fine Art from the Iceland University of the Arts and an MA in Art Education from the same university. As an artist, Halla uses drawings and texts to create fragmented narrative spaces that appear in forms such as installations, books and wall drawings. Halla has written the book  Did I notice it then or did I notice it afterwards? It is a personal graphic narrative about her experience of losing control of reality and going into psychosis. The book uses an interplay of drawings and text to create a narrative that is somewhere between being a traditional autobiography and visual art. Halla has used this book to open up conversations about mental health. The experience has influenced her in many ways and as a teacher she focuses on helping people use art and creativity as a talking point and a gateway to making sense of the world.

Halla is a pictorial storyteller that uses drawings and texts to create fragmented narrative spaces that appear in forms such as installations, books and wall drawings. Her work as a teacher focuses on helping people use art and creativity as a talking point and a gateway to making sense of the world around you.

All artistic fields

English, Icelandic